We are looking for Aliens in the wrong places – report

People have been looking for Aliens in the wrong places, the Earth just scrapes the inner edge of the solar system’s habitable zone, the area in which temperatures allow Earth-like planets to have a liquid surface water.

This was revealed by René Heller of McMaster University, Ontario, Canada and her colleague John Armstrong of Weber State University who suggest looking for superhabitable planets instead of a “second-Earths”.

Such planets are supposed to have particular features such as a more efficient global “thermostat” that would avoid destructive ice ages, shallower oceans and a global magnetic field to protect life from ionizing solar wind particles.

The scientists highlight the nearby star Alpha Centauri B as an ideal candidate that could support a superhabitable world. Slightly smaller than our sun, Alpha Centauri B would be able to incubate hypothetical lifeforms on a superhabitable world for much longer owing to its longer lifespan.

“You want to have a host star that can keep a planet in the habitable zone for 7 to 10 billion years,” which would allow enough time for life to evolve and ecosystems to flourish, Heller said. “We propose a shift in focus,” said Heller. “We want to prioritize future searches for inhabited planets. We’re saying ‘Don’t just focus on the most Earth-like planets if you really want to find life.’”

The researchers believe the hunt for extraterrestrial life is too set in its ways and blinkered toward worlds that we consider to be habitable because they resemble Earth.

It’s a grand observational bias that may ultimately mean that while looking for second-Earths, we overlook far more habitable planets.
There is no question that the search for extraterrestrial life needs “out of the box” thinking and needs various approaches.